


cautery

by casualbird



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Arson, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon, a lil bit of jeralt's alcoholism to spice it up, can i tag this with parenting? is he parenting?, it's not violent per se but there are metaphorical descriptions of injuries and crude wound care, part one SPOILERS, which might not be comfortable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24158923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casualbird/pseuds/casualbird
Summary: Rhea’s not what he thought she was. Rhea did something to Sitri. Rhea did something to the child. He turns it over, works it like bellows into a forge. He knows what he has to do.so like... we all know jeralt set the garreg mach fire, right?
Relationships: Jeralt Reus Eisner & My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Jeralt Week 2020!





	cautery

It feels like this--out in the world, in mildewy forests, the smoking remnants of battlefields, there aren’t exactly ideal conditions for treating wounds. Maybe someone can use white magic, maybe they can’t. Maybe you’re just the one who needs it the least. Then, you sit as square as you can. You clutch your comrade’s hand, half-break their knuckles. Look away.

If you’re lucky, there’s a stick in your mouth when they burn the wound shut. Jeralt’s no idea why it helps--more than once he’s ended up with splinters in his cheeks--but it does.

When he glances over his shoulders, clutches Byleth to his chest, takes the rusting ladder to Abyss one-handed, Jeralt grits his teeth, in the hope that it’ll have the same effect.

He doesn’t. Even once he’s on terra firm, soles dragging over damp, rotting stone, he feels like. He isn’t sure. It’s not like any other blow he’s had, more like... a sort of exhaustion. He’d been poisoned once, as a young man. Scrounged up the wrong forage. It ached when he moved, but it ached worse to lie still, and the hammering in his head...

It’s like that, when he lays a kiss on Byleth’s head, shifts them gently into Aelfric’s spindly arms.

Jeralt doesn’t trust Aelfric—skittish man, always watching exits, fidgeting his hands. He can carry on about his plans for Abyss, about the banned books he’s always reading, can speak ill, hushed and sidewise, of the Church. It doesn’t matter. Jeralt thinks he’s—if not a snake, a pale blind worm, the kind of thing that sustains itself on cave moss.

What matters, though, is that Sitri trusted him. Loved him, in her way. There’s no missing that ‘her way’ isn’t what Aelfric would have had, if he’d been given his seedy little druthers, but she did.

So. It’s the only option, wretched like gnawing shoe leather, but at the very least he feels he’s got a whisper of Sitri’s blessing.

“Protect my child,” he rasps, groping for that edged tone he uses on the enemy. He can’t quite find it, but Aelfric nods tightly all the same. “Don’t let anyone know they’re here.” It’s not as if Aelfric hasn’t been expecting him, but if the message isn’t as plain, as sharp as a knife in the back...

“I-is there anything I could assist you with, Captain?” Aelfric’s smile is stunted, shy. Jeralt’s no idea how to properly hold a baby, but he could swear Aelfric is doing it wrong. Byleth squirms, fusses against his dandruff-flecked sleeves.

Jeralt’s teeth clench so tightly for a moment he’s certain they’ll break.

“No. No, just this.” He toys with the idea of tearing at Aelfric’s stiff collar, gnashing in his ear. It’d frighten the baby, though, so all he does is stare.

“I’ll be back by morning,” he snarls, eyes flint-hard and flat, “and if anything’s gone wrong, Aelfric, I _swear_ I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Gutter mouse. He’s quivering. If there was anywhere else to leave Byleth, anyone else to trust with this, Jeralt would have leapt at it. Now he’s here, wondering how the waif cradling his child has survived this long without a spine.

Aelfric nods, because he’s got some idea of what’s good for him. It’s not enough--there’s one more thing.

“If there’s an _instant,_ Aelfric, where you even consider fucking this up, think of Sitri.”

He turns, then, doesn’t bother waiting for Aelfric to finish stammering. Walks on, as square and straight as he can, tries not to let his feet drag in stagnant puddles.

Jeralt didn’t bear Byleth himself, but in the days since, he’s imagined, _felt_ a cord between them. His blood, his guts, his heartbeat to Byleth.

He grinds his teeth, hard, when it snaps.

The rest is easy.

Easier.

At least, it would have been, if Byleth was somewhere safe. Not _probably safe,_ not _safe enough._ Safe, like they’d been when Jeralt felt them fussing in the womb. Like they’d hardly been since.

 _No heartbeat,_ he thinks, and digs incisors in his cheek before it can spiral. It’s too late, the facts of it throb under his skin like a days-old burn. Heady, sick, blistering.

Rhea’s not what he thought she was. Rhea did something to Sitri. Rhea did something to the child. He turns it over, works it like bellows into a forge. He knows what he has to do.

First, put in an appearance at the pub. Force a dazed, weary smile--doesn’t matter how real it looks. Clap Alois hard on the back. Spill most of the pint he’s given, and then give his regrets-- _got to put the baby down._ He staggers out with ale dripping from his beard, his shirtfront.

He trips on the stairs into the entrance hall, tries not to go down too hard. Hisses, grinds his teeth again. Rights himself--it’s not as if a bit of a limp won’t help. People stare, whisper. _Poor man,_ they must think, _drowning himself in drink._

Upstairs. Jeralt’s feet drag uneven paths over the threadbare carpet, errant arms knock over pot plants, trinkets. Something of Hanneman’s breaks as Jeralt shambles past his office. Any other night, he’d feel badly about it.

By the time he reaches his room--Sitri’s room--he hasn’t seen any students. A cursory glance around the corner finds the library empty.

Jeralt isn’t certain whether he’d wanted it to be. If there were any little brats in there, anyone’s child to risk--he could’ve turned right back around. Made straight for Abyss, not stop until the child was in his arms. Wallop Aelfric one, perhaps, for making him worry.

It doesn’t shake out like that. There’s nothing left to do but _go._ And it feels like--like a doomed mission, like striding out on the fever-pitched battlefield, knowing damn well you’re outmanned. That it’ll be the grace of whatever’s watching that carries you through, not your firepower. If anything.

If he stands around any longer--it really is like cautery. If he waits too long, if he doesn’t just let the healer at him, he won’t. And he’ll bleed, fester, become a liability.

Jeralt takes a little pull at his harshest whiskey, straight from the bottle. It tastes the way dark magic smells, astringent and raw.

Still, he’s always been anchored by that burn in his throat. Pacing outside the infirmary, he’d wet the baby’s head hours before it crowned.

The swallow is thick, jerky--like the shaking of his hands, the lurch of his heart as he splatters dark whiskey across the carpet. The bedclothes where he’d lain with her, the lace-edged bassinet. On the runners outside, trailing slipshod for the audience chamber. Not all the way.

He isn’t sure Sitri would ever forgive him for that.

In the deep rotted-out pit of him, he isn’t certain she’d forgive him _this._

Isn’t certain Byleth will; and he’ll tell them. When they’re old enough. When he’s had enough time, when he himself is ready. _I couldn’t protect you,_ he’ll tell them, _and then I don’t know if I made it worse._

Jeralt breathes, quaking like a guttering candle-flame. He does know. He _does,_ he’s had a moon of sleepless nights to work it out. A moon of witching hours, staring through the stained glass of the lantern on his desk, watching the wick burn down.

He bites, bears down so hard the taste of blood gushes over the clean tingle of whiskey. Pulls a cask of lamp oil from where he’s hidden it away, soaks the place in fuel again. It feels like too much, but it has to be. There can’t be _anything_ left. Nothing but the memory of ale on his breath, the broken tchotchkes on the hallway floor. The empty whiskey bottle, if anything remains of it by morning.

Jeralt's always been one for telling stories--this one, he hopes, will screech _grief-struck drunken accident._

He catches up that lantern in his hand--it’s hot through, and it sears even his thick skin. He hisses, keeps moving. Locks the door from the inside, creaks the window open, wrests himself out onto the roof.

The fresh air is a comfort, but he can’t dwell on it too long. Jeralt breathes, and bites, and flings the lantern onto the sodden floor. Listens half-sick to the shatter, the roar of sudden vicious flame.

With the dark, the rising commotion, the thick cloak and pack he’s slung across himself, it’s easy to slip back into Abyss. To rip his child from unworthy hands, gather them in his arms and _hold_ until his acrid clothes make Byleth fuss.

“Hush,” he murmurs, stepping out into the hazy dark. “It’s alright.”

He prays, to whatever is there, that he’ll never have to hold an iron to his child’s skin, never have to bind another wound that way. He knows he will.

Besides--when the brand falls away, when the stick snaps between your teeth, when the arms that hold you fast let you free, let you fall hissing sidewise in the dirt... there’s nothing quite like the relief.

**Author's Note:**

> goodness! this really is a departure from my usual work, so i hope you think it turned out well!!! let me know what you thought of it, i'm really curious to know!
> 
> if you feel like it, and you're 18+, come yell about fire emblem dads with me on [twitter!!!!](https://twitter.com/bird_scribbles)
> 
> thanks so much for reading! oh, and thank you, bird, for your immensely helpful feedback!


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